Vegas...

Vegas… I can’t figure out if I hate this city more than it hates me.

Maybe it’s a sense of seeing the potential of what I could be getting and/or what I’m currently not getting. More than that, it is probably the expectation of what could come from the city, and the possibility of the greatness it could be, coupled with the disproportionate ratio of utility to dollar spent that shakes me to the core.

That must be it. The idea that a trip to sin city should be fruiting a lustful night with a skinny blonde in a red pencil skirt, instead of a hook-up with an average girl who could just as easily happened anywhere else. On top of that, the idea that I am spending exponentially more, for an equal or lesser result is something that does not appeal to the economical sense. Maybe I’m still not ready for this city? That probably has to do with the fact that the potential avenues for utility in this city are so narrow for me.

That is, I don’t drink, I don’t enjoy gambling, and strip clubs disgust me. That leaves the night clubs and girls. So at the point I’m limiting myself or dealing with girls that aren’t really of higher quality than the ones at home, the trip to sin city starts to make a whole lot less sense. So perhaps that is it… maybe skillset isn’t sharp enough to be taking advantage of the one type of opportunity that would make Vegas worthwhile the exuberant cost.

Who knows… at this point, the mental bar of a solid Vegas trip may be too high to ever reach. On one hand, it wouldn’t take too much, but on the other hand, it would take a lot.

There’s one thing I do know though. I despise the people who scream “Veggaasss!!” And who proceed to come here with a group of 6 guys, dress up like douche bags, walk around the casino, go to a night club but not talk to anyone, come home by themselves, maybe indulge in a buffet, take part in the self-deceit that they’re having a great time, walk around some more, maybe visit a strip club, and then go home telling all their friends about their “EPIC” trip to sin city.


On a positive note, this city tends to hammer in realizations every time I visit. And throughout tonight, and on my way home, they started pouring through my head. A second wake-up call in a sense.

I don’t know where to start, but general bullet points may best relay everything:

1.) Structure. I have lost my structure over the last 2 weeks. Not in the sense of my sets, but in the sense of what I’m doing to maximize the effect of my progression. Given the many bootcamps, changes in understanding of knowledge, not having reliable access to a car and other things, this is somewhat understandable. But then again… it’s not. Structure needs to be re-instated.
The issues comes in two layers. The first layer is the structure of my schedule. I need to reinstate the consistent schedule of going out. I’m noticing that there have been too many holes… The biggest effect of having the holes is that when I do go out, I tend to stall out more, and I’m not opening as many sets/being as systematic as I would if the schedule I was going out for was more systematic. This leads me to my next point…

There was a period of time 2 weeks ago, where my nights out became very systematic. That is, I would go in, chat with he bouncers, and start going form set to set to set. Moreover, it would be systematic in terms of going for the pretty girls and then analyzing each night to find the mistakes and then making adjustments the next day. Somewhere over the last 2 weeks, I lost that systematic nature. There are actually a few reasons for this

2.) Going out as an AC: When going out as an AC, I’m learning a lot in terms of seeing what the right/wrong things to do are in the first ~10 minutes (i.e. locking in, body language, coming in with equal energy, etc…), but it’s also an excuse to open sparingly, to get into most sets by coming in as a “wing,” and to hide behind the excuse of not opening because I’m there to “work with the students.” While being an AC has helped my understanding of the material tremendously, it has also thrown a wrench in my systematic structure.

3.) Going out with a wing: What Future said at the end of today really struck a chord with me. He said: “The better you get, the more a wingman drags you down.” I hate to admit this, because I like going out with friends… but it is completely true. The times I’ve gone out with a wing, I open less sets, it takes me longer to get over my initial AA, I fall back into hanging out with my wing, I fall into a habit of following my wing around, and I have a tendency to not open and rely on the sets he is opening to get into set. When I look back over the weeks, the actual benefit of having a wing (comfort aside) is severely outweighed by the disadvantage of having a wing (which essentially comes down to much less efficiency).

I’ve reached the point in my progression where others talking about simple things in very technical terms actually drags me down. In other words, when others are talking about areas of game I have already gotten over, it is pulling my attention away from my current holes in my game. It’s hard to quantify in words, but it comes down to this: Being around people who are equal or slightly worse than me drags me down. It sounds strange, but there’s reason for this.

When I’m around those who are much worse, I’m able to help them, and their blatant elementary errors don’t really have an affect on me. Moreover, while I’m guiding them in the right direction, I sometimes feel a need to be a role model, which actually helps me push myself. When I’m with those that are much better than me, I find myself trying to prove myself and doing whatever I can to keep up. I find this is particularly the case when I’m hanging out with an instructor and it’s not in a teacher-student setting. Moreover, I’m able to learn through osmosis and I can pick up good habits and things they’re doing. And when I’m hanging out with someone who is slightly better than me, I feel the urge of competition and I push myself to get up to his level.

However, when I’m around those who are equal or slightly worse than me, I get comfortable dropping my game a bit and falling into a trap with them. For instance, I may take comfort in not opening as much because he isn’t as well. Basically, there lacks the motivation to push myself, and there is actually influence to fall back a bit and to stay complacent with where I am (the idea of misery loves company). This obviously doesn’t hold true for everyone, but this is how it’s been for me.

4.) Being around people who are too gamey: Gamey is a term that is hard to define, but I view it as two-part. The first way to be gamey is to be a heavy user of all the gross pick-up terms (i.e. sarge, PUA, neg, peacock). While the first definition is a relatively easy fix – just stop being a dousche bag – the second is a bit more in-depth. The second characteristic of someone that is gamey, is a person who lacks a naturally developed social sense, and someone who is only able to view social interactions in the world through the terms and theories taught through Game.

While the tools of Game are great for breaking down social dynamics for better understanding, it is noticeable when someone has lacked the development of social intuition (i.e. hanging out with cool friends growing up, having a social life even if it didn’t include fucking a lot of hot girls, and just having had the opportunity to be a high school/college kid). So while these people are great at acting normal is a pick-up situation, they fall short in every other normal situation. It’s almost as though, the skillsets for when talking to a girl are the only ones that were developed, so it’s used to fill in all the other gaps.

I need to severely limit my time with either of these two types of people. They fuck up my progression. Being around these people tarnish my view on Game as something essentially noble, and adds a strange, “weird” feeling to my perception of it. This influences how I think about game, which in turn has its own affects on my inner game and sense of self. If I don’t feel as though I’m doing something awesome, and learning something I should be comfortable completely defending to others, for some reason it affects the rate at which I can internalize it for myself.

I’ve encountered this is other things I’ve gotten good at in the past. For instance, when I was getting good at recruiting/interviewing, there were people I came in contact with that embodied similar characteristics to the second type mentioned above. That is, they were not socially developed people, and relied on the learned skillsets of interviewing to fill in every other social gap in their lives. Talking to these people made the entire “getting good at interviewing” process seem really fucking weird. To avoid fucking up my own progression, I limited contact with these people as much as possible.

Just like I felt I had to be a cool/normal guy while learning interview skills, I need to feel as though I’m a cool/normal guy while learning game. This self-perception actually has a strong bearing on my inner game and overall confidence. Being around people who can taint and/or jeopardize this is not good for me.